by Nicole Caruso Garcia

It wasn’t always a taboo,
But now is cause for shame.
And oh, you know the thing I mean,
And oh, it has a name.

Our kinks should be addressed—why not?
My husband didn’t mind,
Whether I was all alone
Or we were intertwined.

I’d like to praise it openly;
It’s healthy, not exotic.
In my defense, it didn’t use to
Be unpatriotic.

Invented by a clown of theirs,
It made right-wingers cheer.
(My friends are libs and libertines;
It’s their rebuke I fear.)

My money in the pockets of
That mustached wacko guy,
I cringe to think we nearly kissed
Democracy goodbye.

So rest assured, I feel some guilt
About this peccadillo.
I don’t know how I sleep at night
On Mike Lindell’s MyPillow®.

by Clyde Always

“Queen Elizabeth strips Prince Andrew of royal and military titles… after a Manhattan judge
allowed the sexual assault lawsuit against the disgraced royal to move forward.”
—New York Post

Because his former title proved
to be too great an onus,
hereafter shall the Duke of York
be called “His Sleazy Lowness.”

by Julia Griffin

“A badger gets credit for finding Roman coins in a cave in northern Spain”
—NPR

While badgers’ tastes are various,
They sniff at the denarius,

Though nobody can well prevent ’em
From hoarding aurum et argentum.

For larger coins, they’re really cadgers:
Indeed, you’ll seldom witness badgers

As jubilantly dirty as
When snouting a sestertius.

by Kevin Ahern

The company admits
It pulled a boner
After hearing from a freezing
Goldfish owner.

by Ruth S. Baker

“Hedgehog balloons up to massive size after developing rare condition:
‘Balloon Syndrome’ caused a small hedgehog to swell up with gas,
which required a vet to ‘pop’ it”
—Fox News

Poor Bubbles panicked: up he blew,
A hedgehog-Zeppelin, until
A human ally powered through
With something like a human quill.

Yes, there’s a moral (everything
Allows a sage to moralize):
We sometimes need a friend to bring
Us back to earth and normal size.

by Paul Lander

Davidson says “no.”
Will not host Oscars, too focused
On the Golden Globes.

by Alex Steelsmith

“Norway tells conscripts to return underwear after service.”
—AP News

Shivery skivvery
dutiful servicemen,
ordered to leave with their
crotches fig-leafed,

can’t keep their underwear
post-militarily;
every last one has been
fully de-briefed.

by Chris O’Carroll

“Vegan mum claims she can boost her immune system to beat coronavirus by drinking sperm
smoothies . . . The part-time blogger consumes the fluid daily directly from her boyfriend
of two years, as part of a smoothie, or freezes it in an ice tray to use another day.”
—The U.S. Sun

Let me commend your two-year friend,
A lad of grand profusion,
Who’s got the stuff, more than enough,
When he achieves conclusion.

Were I your guy, you’d have to try
For health some other way:
Put to the test, I’d be hard-pressed
To fill your ice cube tray.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Australia was open to the champ
Until it wasn’t. “Rules are rules,” he’d learn.
Served no exemption for a visa stamp
To enter, he hit back a sharp return,
Restoring deuce not on, but in, the court:
A judge decreed that Djokovic must be
Let in at once—despite no vax—for sport …
If only that were that! With this decree,
Advantage went to government, who would
Negate the ruling, after quite a lot
Of dallying: The champ no longer could
Parade the only shots his arms had got—
Emphatic aces, backhands, volley jobs,
Net-clearing drop shots, overheads, and lobs!

by Shaun Jex

Christopher Key
Said, “Everyone, listen to me!
The secret to Corona curin’
Is drinkin’ up cups of fresh urine.”

by Nora Jay

“Manchin’s $1.8 trillion spending offer is reportedly no longer on the table.”
—CNBC

Don’t mention Joe Manchin,
That meanest of menschen,
That prime avalanche in
The path of subvention.

by Bruce Bennett

“Elmo’s Petty Hatred For A Pet Rock Is The Best Thing About 2022 So Far”
—HuffPost

“Rocco’s just a rock!
Rocco’s not alive!”

Elmo shouts his shock,
shrill in overdrive.

Millions now applaud.
Twitter’s gone berserk.

Watch him diss a fraud.
Sock it to the jerk!

by Dan Campion

“Earth is at the center of a 1,000-light-year-wide ‘Swiss cheese’ bubble carved out by supernovas”
—Live Science

Although la lune is not Swiss cheese,
Le clair’s a cheesy bubble!
Well, quel soufflé! (For recipes,
See books by Edwin Hubble.)

by Alex Steelsmith

The ten phrases chosen for Lake Superior State University’s 2022 Banished Words List include
“Wait,what?”, “No worries,” “New normal,” “That being said,” “Circle back,” and
“At the end of the day.”

Wait-ily, what-ily?
Overused verbiage
banished? “No worries, new
normal,” we say.

That being said, we may
phraseologically
still circle back, at the
end of the day.